I watched two more movies of very recent vintage (2022) which could both be considered spins on the Eco-Thriller genre but with very different stories.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Bl ... ine_(film)
is based on a book published only a year before which is basically an instruction manual on how to do active violent property-damage resistance (a la Extinction Rebellion, Stop The Oil, or the coal they recently dumped in the Trevi fountain), aka eco-terrorism in the name of hard-left climate change hysteria.
Somehow, the professor who wrote the book still has his job at Lund University in Sweden even though he wrote a terrorist manual basically akin to the Anarchist Cookbook. Either there's really good freedom-of-speech in Sweden, or the government there agrees with his perspective.
The film, however, isn't set in Europe, because the target audience is North American, where the message apparently needs to be most delivered, and also where the majority of the viewing audience money is.
The plot is basically gathering together a bunch of disparate misfits, a la the Breakfast Club or Ocean's Eleven, in pursuit of the goal of blowing up a West Texas pipeline to send a message about stopping the use of fossil fuels (which would, of course, utterly destroy the economy, but the terrorists don't care if it does).
You'd think that was enough of an agenda, but in fact, the DEI funding for this project kicks in when you get to the casting:
- two black lesbians from Cali
- a black film student from Cali
- a Chicana student dropout from Cali (who is of course named 'Xochitl' because Aztlan, man)
- a Native from Dakota who is somehow a self-taught genius at explosives
- a salt-of-the-earth West Texan hardscrabbler who has been personally wronged by the oil company's eminent domain
- two Antifa kids from Portland
[Since inquiring minds wanted to know, yes there are two makeout scenes.
The one between the two black lesbians is tender and loving, full of concern and crying. They just kiss and spoon.
For the Antifa couple, the excitement of doing the terrorist act makes them horny and they fuck while waiting for instructions.]
Perfect casting, right? The only thing missing is someone whose pronoun is "they". But I'm sure this list was progressive enough to secure backing from the ESG sources.
Anyway, the movie is what is says it is: a literal roadmap, showing every little step with electrical and chemical skill, on how to build large bombs that could not just blow up a pipeline, but pretty much anything.
And yes
They do blow up the pipeline, but two of them take the fall for it, and go to prison so the rest of the team can skate free.
The thing that seemed least believable is how all of these disparate people would communicate and gather from across the country to do this action in West Texas. You'd think that you could find *almost* the same level of diversity if it was just a bunch of members of the BLM and Antifa cells in Dallas/Fort Worth or something like that. A lot less purchasing of bus tickets!
More than anything, what's ironic about the existence of this movie is: Freedom of speech, man! Except I rather doubt that a movie like this will be shown almost anywhere outside the West. Certainly not in, say, China or Saudi Arabia or Iran or Turkey, or anywhere you could give insurgencies ideas. And, of course, the people who made this movie very much want to restrict our freedom to live our lives in certain ways. Irony drips like sweet molasses.
Is it a thrilling movie? Sure. I'm not 100% convinced with the rather light character development which is entirely in service of the agenda.
And the agenda is clear: destroy Western Civilization as we know it. Good luck with that.
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If that last one wanted you to pass a law which requires today's college students to buy a license before owning a film camera (just kidding)
this next one is in a different league almost all by itself.
Vesper (2022) is a wholly European film funded in France and Belgium and made in Lithuania (which has some incredible forest scenery and very drippy bogs and fens, apparently).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesper_(film)
It's about a girl named Vesper who is somehow a genius (there's always a genius somewhere) in the field of biohacking: genetically engineering organisms on the fly.
This premise is made possible by the post-apocalyptic scenario: in a quest to save the planet, a lot of genetically engineered organisms were constructed in labs (possibly ones like Wuhan). But these organisms were inadvertently released into the environment, somehow causing environmental catastrophe.
Now, the area where Vesper is controlled by elite scientists in domed cities called Citadels, where they engineer seeds that can only be grown once (so, like Monsanto now), leaving the rest of the population outside the cities poor and desperate to survive. These peasants live in basically medieval shacks but somehow they have super-advanced machines like energy reactors which run on bacteria, huge refrigerators which contain chilled bags of blood, drones that can apparently be controlled by some kind of thought transmission, and makeshift chemistry labs. So, why are they poor if they have all of those resources?
Though Vesper's character is developed well, she could be almost anyone, as the plot basically comes down to the eventual release of a strain of seeds which regrow themselves, rejecting the need for the controlled technology from the Citadels.
I do have some questions, though:
- Some of the functions of the weird fungal-looking genetically altered organisms are explained in the process of the very interesting worldbuilding,
but their potential is left unrealized. None of the organisms are named, nor is there any sort of Bible for them (a la Dark Crystal, or Love & Monsters).
- We're told that an ecological disaster happened, but the world looks fine to me! Beautiful pristine forests stretching out in every direction.
So, the disaster happened only to the humans, but the rest of the world is fine? No climate change or desolate wastelands?
- We never see the inside of the Citadels or even get near them. This is unfortunate because we get very little sense of what life is like inside them or why it's better than living in a pristine forest. All we see from the citadel is a brief glimpse of a dying scientist, and a group of faceless fascist hunters who hunt down Vesper like they're the First Order from Star Wars or those faceless cops from THX-1138.
- The trope of the heroic young girl is taken to a bit of an extreme as she is pretty much able to solve any problem which comes her way. It would have been a bit more believable if she had maybe a small group of friends with her, as she seems to know what to do in almost any situation.
- There are lots of flying machines (or are they flying organisms?) zooming above Vesper in the air. But they never come to Earth. They never threaten the populace. And we never find out what they're for: surveillance, transportation? Who knows? Seems like they're just part of the aesthetics to provide a bit more of a Bladerunner atmosphere for some reason.
- The idea of the "Pilgrims" is left very open-ended. Her mother left her to join them, and they are a group of veiled reclusive raggedy monks who never show their faces and just drag useless junk into huge piles around a squalid camp where they've built a really tall tower. Which begs several questions:
- why can't she reunite with her mother if she is among that group - I mean, she must be living in that camp, right?
- The Tower looks well put together, lashed pieces of wood and metal with thousands of ropes. Did the crazy Pilgrims build that..really?
Or did someone else build it for them? Where are the intelligent leaders of the camp who would have been managing such a project?
We never find out any of it. Ultimately the only purpose of the tower is
so Vesper can climb up it, looking at the Citadels in one direction and the pristine forest in another, and then deciding to spread the seeds like Johnny Appleseed.
But the positives here are that the world-building is great. This is not your typical sci-fi as the plot moves very slowly, and the focus is personal (always on Vesper) despite all the weird bio-tech floating around.
The best comparison I could give it is it's like a live-action version of a Miyazaki movie - very dreamy visuals at times - perhaps closest to Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind, which is similarly post-apocalyptic. Vesper is similar enough to Nausicaa to make that comparison, although in service to that, I would have loved to see her grab one of those flying machines and hit the sky, zooming over the Citadels and bombing them or whatever.
I understand that this was well watched in Europe, but nary a peep in North America, I think. Overall the production lost money, which is a shame because it would be nice to see a sequel, to see how Vesper (who is rather young for a heroine protagonist) progresses further in exploring and liberating her post-apoc world.
Definitely check it out!